


What You Leave Behind

by Lexigent



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Darkfic, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-24
Updated: 2010-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-13 08:50:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/135416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/pseuds/Lexigent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's a killer. Inspired by the darkfic challenge at thegameison_sh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You Leave Behind

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it's a rather shameless Dexter takeoff. Comments are love :)

“Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.”  
John smiled to himself as he thought about that statement. How little Sherlock had known about him when he had first said that, and how they had soon found out the worst about each other.

Sherlock’s case wasn’t that bad, really. Severed heads in the fridge, an “arch-enemy” who turned out to be his brother, and nearly getting himself killed on a regular basis was about it. All of these were things that John could easily live with. His own case was slightly more complicated.

There was, of course, the adrenaline addiction. He had figured that one out fairly early on in life. From racing and boxing, it had been only a small step to joining the Army and going somewhere where there would always be excitement and gunfire and the threat of getting killed. It would have scared most normal people off but he needed it like he needed to breathe.

Secondly, there was the fascination with anatomy. More precisely, with cutting. The precision of the steel when held by skilled hands, the way that skin and muscles and tendons offered no resistance to a scalpel was utterly intoxicating. Admittedly, cutting Harry’s arm maybe hadn’t been a brilliant move. He had confined himself to animals and dead things after that. Ultimately this could be taken care of in a socially acceptable way via Biology A Levels and medical school. He had briefly considered asking Molly out just because of the line of work she was in.

Finally, there was the third addiction. The one he had been so afraid of and so careful to hide. But when he had met Sherlock Holmes, he knew instantly that it was no use even trying to hide anything from him.

He looked at the body parts in front of him. They had been separated by precise medical cuts, everything in its place, blood oozing onto the metal stretcher. His victim’s clothes lay neatly folded on a trolley next to it. As he packed up, neatly tying the bags, the movements as familiar to him as making tea was to other people, he thought about how perfectly Sherlock and himself had been matched. Two men out to track down and punish those criminals that the law couldn’t touch. This one was John’s ultimate tribute.  
He cleaned the stretcher and packed up, leaving no traceable evidence. Not that it would have mattered in this particular case, but it was the principle of the thing. He lowered the bags into the river and made his way back home. Only one thing left to do.

The police found the body of John Watson in the bathroom of 221B Baker Street the next morning. There were two scalpel cuts on his wrists. He was dressed in a blue Westwood suit.


End file.
